Monitoring of Interferon Response Triggered by Cells Infected by Hepatitis C Virus or Other Viruses Upon Cell–Cell Contact

Abstract

Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) constitute a unique DC subset specialized in rapid and massive secretion of cytokines, including type I interferon (i.e., IFNα and IFNβ), known to be pivotal for both innate immunity and the onset of adaptive response. The production of type I IFNs by pDCs is primarily induced by the recognition of viral nucleic acids through Toll-like receptor (TLR)-7 and -9 sensors located in the endolysosomal compartment. Importantly, in the context of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, pDC type I IFN response is triggered by the sensing of infected cells via physical cell–cell contact. Such a feature is also observed for many genetically distant viruses, including notably viruses of the Retroviridae, Arenaviridae, Flaviviridae, Picornaviridaea, Togaviridae families and observed for various infected cell types. Here, we described a set of experimental methods for the ex vivo studies of the regulation of pDC activation upon physical cell–cell contact with virally infected cells.

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Notes

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Helana Paidassi (CIRI, INSERM U1111, Lyon) for critical reading of the manuscript and to our colleagues for encouragement and help. We are grateful to Camille Demure for the graphical design of Fig. 1. This work was supported by grants from the French “Agence Nationale pour la Recherche” (ANR-13-JSV3-0004-01-EXAMIN) and the “Agence Nationale pour la Recherche contre le SIDA et les Hépatites Virales” (ANRS-AO 2017-01, ECTZ35316) and the LabEx Ecofect (ANR-11-LABX-0048).